Former American Press staff writer Sunny Brown Farley writes "Naked Faith," a look at faith in its natural form: lived out in the day-to-day lives of ordinary people.

An Image to Uphold

Posted February 15, 2008 at 11:16 am
Filed Under Faith & Religion | 3 Comments

I recently read a book called “The Christians as the Romans Saw Them,” by Robert Louis Wilken. This book paints a picture of how early Christians were viewed in Roman society. According to Wilken, the Christians were both disliked and misunderstood. Likewise, they both disliked and misunderstood others.

Sounds familiar.

Seems to me that the Christians of ancient Rome and those of the modern United States have something in common. We don’t always represent ourselves very well.

Perhaps our dislike of others and refusal to understand them leads others to feel the same way about us.

I was thinking today that I want to live more in the Image of God. I think this will help me to better represent my faith and better relate to those who do not share my faith.

The image of God is fascinating concept. Gen. 1:26-27 says: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (NIV)

To be created in the image of God speaks to the fact that we were designed to be something like God. As such, we must consider what God is like.

The only way we know what God is like is through God’s self-revelation. God reveals Godself to us in many ways. One of the most telling is through scripture.

In the word of God, we find the Word of God. How amazing is it that God came to dwell among creation as God with us, Emmanuel, Christ Jesus! I can’t think of a better way to live out the image of God than by exampling my life after the life of Jesus.

Jesus came as a servant, a healer, a friend, a savior.

He embraced the marginalized (misunderstood) and loved (more than liked) all of humanity. What an Image!

Comments

3 Responses to “An Image to Uphold”

Mark on February 18th, 2008 7:03 pm

Many Christians ruin their own image. In todays world the majority of Christians squabble about issues they believe to be brand new, but are infact as ancient as the first Christians. They need to stop preaching to the world and turn inside, rebuild their cribbled structure, and image. The United States in general needs to stop policing the world and police ourselves. The Romans did not treat the christians any worse than the Jews, Germanic Tribes, Carthaginians, or any other ethnic group they conquered.
Joe Savoie on March 12th, 2008 9:33 am

Another thing Roman Christians and modern American Christians have in common is that they lived and live in societies that became increasingly Godless. A simple little example is the Dilbert comic strip that is currently blaspheming Jesus the Messiah. There will be little objection to this because we who call ourselves Christians either have been calloused to such blasphemies or just do not care enough to do something about it. In this Lenten season of introspection, I intend to ask God to make me more sensitive to and offended by the things that offend Him.
Eireannge on March 26th, 2008 8:04 am

i am gonna show this to my friend, man